Hey Dan,
The best advice for you is to send you to
http://www.ar15.com If you look around and maybe go to the equipment exchange or the industry sponsor area and do a little looking and reading you may get a good idea on current prices being paid.
I dont know about the rest of the shooting industry ,but black rifles and all good gadgets that go with them including ammo have been getting purchased waaaay faster than it can be produced and most every one dealing with black rifles and acc.is backordered beyond belief,this makes prices stupider.
I can tell you that I happened to put together a pair of ar 15 rifles about 6 or 8 months ago,
basic A2 M4gergy with fixed carry handle
I did not do the uppers,had a local guy tune the uppers and polish the triggers a little.....I had $675.00 in each complete rifle....not cadillacs but definately solid rifles that shoot straight and are reliable.I sold one to a friend and kept the other for my collection(till I lost them all in a tragic boating accident but that is another story).Currently I ordered a dedicated upper in .22lr with a match grade lothar walther barrel and have a couple billet machined lowers ordered and parts kits etc,and when I get this .22 tack driver done I will have a grand in it easily.The same amount as I spent putting together some name brand components and made a heavy barreled free floated tack driver 2 years ago,now that rifle would probably be another $500.00 easily in this political atmosphere.
I have been waiting a couple months for the pieces and parts of my dedicated .22lr ar15 to show up.I know of a group of guys in Iowa who did a group buy and were told basically a minimum of 6 months wait for all the components.
A little long winded on my reply but you basically have to gamble with the political atmosphere on wether to buy what you have and can get in hand and pay inflated prices or maybe wait till panic buying slows a little and supply catches up to demand and prices settle out a little.If no ban shows up and the economic crunch gets worse,I would expect a lot of the "elmer fudd" types that are doing most of the ar15 panic buying will be needing to get some of that cash back from those rifles and some bargains will be there to buy.Just mt $2.00 worth,inflation and all.
dorson
Forgot to add you may need to decide on what barrel twist you want ,newer stuff is 1x7 or 1x8 or 1x9 as these will stabilize from 50 to 75 grain bullets,there is a difference between .223 rem and 5.56 nato chamber.The 5.56 will shoot both cartridges but you may have trouble with mil surp ammo in .223 rem chamber.
There is also a "wylde chamber" that shoots both cartridges also.
Good luck with that BRD.
